Joan used to tell me about the day you were planted
Fifty eight long years ago
Now she is gone and you have fallen
Defeated by years of strong winds

Twelve years I’ve watched
From my bedroom window
Seen your beauty change
With each passing season

Watched so many birds rest
In your thick heavy branches
Flitting forth and back
To collect seed from the feeders

Great ***, blue ***, long-tailed *** (like lollipops)
And the not so often beautiful coal ***
Greater spotted woodpecker, Male and female
Crow and dove, robin and chaffinch
Dunnock, nuthatch and the rarely seen Yellowhammer

I’m sitting here looking at the empty space
That you used to occupy
It seems so bare, even barren
Not to see your branches spreading outwards
In welcome to the wildlife that came

Now you lay horizontal across the ditch
Trunk torn from its rightful place by a storm
Leaving a big empty space
That opens the view across the common to the woods

As lovely as the view is and I’m grateful for it
It will not compensate for the view of you each morning
As I look at the open space you left in the hedgerow
I realise you have left a similar space in my heart

Farewell my regal hawthorn tree
You will not be forgotten
All the memories will stay in so many hearts
And the birds are still resting for now
In you sadly fallen body

       Copyright 15/01/20 Janice Chinn